The present invention relates to a directory service which enables to manage business information in a centralized manner, and more particularly to a technology of converting directory data arranged so that a content of the data directory service may be reflected on different data schemata inside of an application provided with its own database.
The publication of xe2x80x9cDueling Directoriesxe2x80x9d, DATAMATION, May 1, 1996, pages 48 to 50 and the specifications of JP-A-10-49408 and JP-A-6-139126 disclose directory data and data schemata.
Today, the normal in-house information system includes plural individual systems such as network operating systems and mailing systems mingled therein. Under this type of office automation circumstances, each user is required to enter his or her user information proper to each system such as a log-in name, a password, and a mail address, for the purpose of using each system included in the in-house information system. Hence, a system administrator is required to do a burdensome operation of registering and deleting the user information proper to each system each time a user is added or exists.
Moreover, in general, the in-house information system may be often built at each relatively small-scaled department or section. However, if the in-house information system is independent in each section or department, the procedure on moving persons from one section to another and the exchange of mails between sections cannot be smoothly exchanged. In order to overcome this disadvantage, it has been expected to build a large-scaled in-house information system integrated all over an company.
Under these circumstances, as a service that enables to manage user information and information on instruments and resources used in different systems in a centralized manner or an infrastructure of an overall in-house information system, remark is focused on a so-called directory service.
The representative standards for the directory service refer to X.500 recommended by CCITT. X.500 defines the directory service as a client-server type distributed system architecture and defines the DAP (Directory Access Protocol) as a directory access protocol between a client and a server.
The X.500-compliant directory service includes a data model in which hierarchical management is done in a tree-structure or a directory-tree manner. A directory entry is located in a leaf. Each entry has a RDN (relative distinguished name) to be uniquely distinguished among entries having the same parent entry. Further, each entry is uniquely distinguished by a DN (Distinguished Name) having a train of RDNs for indicating a passage from a root of a tree structure. In addition, each entry may include as attributes various kinds of information such as a mail address, a name, a phone number, a fax number, and a photo of each user.
Further, each entry inevitably belongs to one or more object classes. Herein, the object class defines a set of essential attributes to the class or attributes to be possibly incorporated. The combination of this object class definition and the tree structure definition is called a directory schema or simply schema.
The IEFT (Internet Engineering Task Force), which is a standardizing body about an internet, defines the LDAP (Light Weight Directory Access Protocol) (RFC2251) operating on a TCP/IP task. It is advantageous that the LDAP is more light than the DAP operating on an OSI task.
As mentioned above, though remark is focused on the centralized management of business information through the effect of a directory service for reducing the burden on the management, in actual, almost of the applications (in-house information systems) installed at each section or department of a company include their own databases and serve to manage the business information about users and the company in the proper formats to the applications. (Hereafter, the business informations managed by these applications are referred to as application data.) It means that one house (company) includes a database managed on the directory service and plural databases having their own schemata. Hence, each house needs the same number of units of management information as the number of applications multiplied by the number of clients, which results in making the centralized management difficult.
For solving these problems, the following two method have been proposed.
The first method is configured to manage all the data required by every application through the directory service so that each application may support a directory access protocol and refer to directory data.
Like the first method, the second method is also configured to manage all the data required by every application through the directory service. However, the second method is configured to convert the proper data to the application and then reflect the data onto the proper database to the application. The application refers to its own database as usual.
According to the first method, there may exist one or some applications that cannot refer to the directory data, because one or some of the applications included in the in-house system cannot realistically support the directory access protocol in light of the problems on the structure and the development of the program. Further, this method is configured to directly refer to the directory data. Hence, the application can be executed only when the directory service is running.
On the other hand, the second method does not have the problem described with respect to the first method and enables to manage the business information in a centralized manner.
Many proposals have been made on the second method, that is, the method in which the directory data is reflected on another unit of directory data or a proper database to a specific application and thereby synchronization is taken between the directory data or the directory data and the proper database to the specific application.
However, the conventional method according to the second method, in which synchronization is taken between the directory data or between the directory data and the proper database to the specific application, includes only one conversion rule for one object class. Disadvantageously, it means that all the entries belonging to the class are converted on the conversion rule. Hence, part of the directory tree cannot be selectively reflected on another database. As another disadvantage, only the same schema conversion holds true to the entries of the same class existing in the same directory.
In actual, however, as mentioned above, almost of the applications (in-house information systems) respectively installed in the sections and departments of the company include their own databases. Normally, the different databases have their own schemata for making the target object and object abstract. Hence, some demands take place. For example, only the information about any business office is searched from the directory data for managing the overall information of the company and then is reflected on the information of the application to be operated at each business office. Or, when the schema conversion is done from the user information managed by the directory into the user information of the application, the schema on the corresponding application to the post of the user is changed. The conventional method for taking synchronization between the directory data or between the directory data and the proper database to the specific application cannot cope with those demands.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method, a device, and a program for converting directory data which are arranged to reflect a content of directory data on a proper database to each application even if the proper database to each application has its own target object or schema for searching the target object.
According to an aspect of the invention, a method for converting directory data, for reflecting a content of the directory data onto at least one unit of application data, comprises the steps of:
searching data of a directory entry specified by at least one filtering rule related with the application data on which the content of the directory data is to be reflected;
schema-converting the data of the searched directory entry on the basis of the schema conversion rule for converting the data based on the schema of the directory data into the data based on the schema of the application data, the schema conversion rule being compatible with the filtering rule used for searching the data; and
reflecting the data of the schema-converted entry onto the application data on which the content of the directory data is to be reflected.
In the method of the invention, if the content of the directory data is reflected onto the application data, at first, the data of the target directory entry of the application is searched by the filtering rule compatible with the application. Then, the searched data of the directory entry is schema-converted on the schema conversion rule compatible with the filtering rule used by searching the data and then is reflected on the application data.
According to the invention, hence, if the directory entry or schema is individual in each application, the content of the directory data may be reflected onto the data of each application.
Further, for example, by allocating two or more filtering rules to one application and different schema conversion rules to the filtering rules respectively, the content of the directory data to be reflected on the application data may be schema-converted in each data unit of the directory entry to be searched by each of those filtering rules.